


It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Something

by EstellaB



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Oblivious Jemma Simmons, Season 1, just fluff, vaguely panicked leo fitz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28300176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EstellaB/pseuds/EstellaB
Summary: Christmas morning on the Bus.
Relationships: Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons & Leo Fitz's Mum, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Something

“Merry Christmas, Fitz!” Jemma sing-songs as she barges into his bunk without even a perfunctory knock, far too cheerful for this time of the morning, especially on what is nominally a day off. 

He opens his eyes blearily, and finds her standing directly in front of him, beaming. “’S very early,” he complains, but realistically she isn’t going to leave, so he pulls himself up to a sitting position and rubs his face. “Morning, Simmons.” And then he registers something else. “You could only bring one suitcase on the Bus!” he points out, baffled. “Did you _really_ waste packing space on Christmas pyjamas?”

Jemma is wearing fuzzy red and white pyjamas patterned with – he starts to laugh. Patterned with tiny TARDISes and Daleks, but in a festive, Fair Isle knit sort of way. They look very soft, and he resists the sudden urge to run a finger along her arm and confirm it for himself. “It wasn’t a _waste_ ,” Jemma replies indignantly. At least, she’s trying to sound indignant, but then she catches his eye and starts laughing as well. She nods at his bed. “Are you going to let me sit down?”

He obligingly shifts position until his back is against the wall, rearranging his pillows so he and Jemma can have one each. She puts something down in front of him, and it’s only then that he realises Jemma has brought him breakfast in bed. Immediately he is filled with a heady mixture of surprise and panic and _something else indefinable_ at the intimacy of it, but he can’t fall too far down that rabbit hole before Jemma sits next to him and crosses her legs. He abruptly pushes whatever – whatever that was to one side, because she’s talking to him again.

“Breakfast,” she says, brightly. “And presents!”

Presents? He can’t see any presents on the tray, but now that he’s waking up, he is much more interested in breakfast, anyway. Chocolate croissants, orange juice, and a teapot – where did she get a teapot on the Bus? – and he suddenly remembers Jemma telling him years ago that this is how Christmas Day starts in her family home. Everyone piling into one bed, eating chocolate croissants and opening presents. He doesn’t know how to feel about that, except that he is definitely glad that it’s his bunk Jemma has invited herself into this morning for company, instead of Skye’s. Or Ward’s. 

Jemma taps him on the arm, and he realises she’s passing him a cup of tea before pouring one for herself. “The croissants are warm,” she says, gesturing at the tray, and he balances his tea uncertainly against the wall as he picks one up. It’s delicious. She curls up next to him, pulling his blanket over her legs before she takes a croissant himself. For the nth time since the virus, he wonders how he ended up with a friend like her.

“Merry Christmas, Jemma,” he mumbles around a mouthful of croissant. She gives him a ten-thousand-watt smile in response.

He’s onto his second helping when he can suddenly hear Skype sounding from his laptop across the room.

“That’ll be Mum,” he says, trying to disentangle himself from his sheets without dislodging the breakfast stuff. “D’you mind - ”

Jemma hastily picks up the tray and wriggles away from him. “Do you want me to - ”

“Oh, no, stay,” he says before he can think about it. “She’s always asking after you anyway, might as well say hello.”

She’s visibly pleased by this, and as he answers the call, she busies herself pulling his bedside table over so that they can prop the laptop on it.

“Merry Christmas, Leo!” It’s nearly one p.m. in Glasgow. His mum is beaming, sherry in hand, Christmas tree in the background. He feels a sudden pang of homesickness, but smiles back anyway.

“Merry Christmas, Mum.” He carries the laptop over to his bed and puts it on the table, climbing back in next to Jemma without really considering how it might look. That is, until he does. “Um. Jemma is here,” he says unnecessarily, pointing at the woman in question. 

“Merry Christmas, Donna!” Jemma chirps, blissfully unselfconscious. “It’s so lovely to see you.”

If his mum has any thoughts about the fact that Jemma is in his bed, both of them still in pyjamas and clearly eating breakfast off the same plate, then _bless her_ , she keeps them to herself. “Lovely to see you too, hen,” she says instead. “Merry Christmas. In fact, Leo’s got something for you from me this year. Now I get to watch you open it.”

“Oh, Donna, that’s so kind of you! You really didn’t need to.”

Fitz had – not forgotten exactly, but hadn’t given a lot of thought to the parcel that had arrived with his. Come to think of it, though, his mum’s insistence on sending her a present only happened after he told her about Jemma’s near-death experience. He had omitted the part about breaking quarantine to help her, and the minor detail of trying to follow her out of the plane, but Jemma had told her parents, and _her_ mum was forever talking to _his_ mum, and what with one thing and another, she seems to have found out. Anyway, she’d been asking about Jemma a lot. More than usual, even. And she’d never got her a Christmas present before, either. His ears turn a bit pink as this coalesces in his mind, and he dives off the bed to root around under it.

His mum and Jemma are chatting away happily in the background, and he takes a moment to collect himself and remember that Jemma is his best friend in the world, he’s seen her in her pyjamas before, he’s had breakfast with her before, and he’s had conversations with her while she sits on his bed before. None of these things is new. Doing all of them at once is, but it doesn’t mean anything more than that they’re just in a new situation. She’s feeling extra friendly because it’s Christmas, and she misses her family. His fingers finally find the parcels he’s after, and to his surprise another couple. He pulls them all out and piles them on the bed, looking at the unfamiliar presents in confusion – until he recognises the handwriting.

“ _Simmons_ ,” he hisses, pointing at them vigorously. “Did you sneak into my room while I was _sleeping_ \- ”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jemma replies, looking insufferably, delightfully smug. “I came and hid them last night while you and Skye were watching Die Hard in the lounge.”

“You can’t just break into my room! I could have had clothes all over the floor!”

“The door was open, Fitz! And we’ve lived together for _five years_ \- I’ve seen your pants before!”

He heaves a huge sigh, more for effect than anything, and hands her the parcel his mum sent her before sitting down. “You’re an absolute menace.” She grins at him in response, and he tries and fails to suppress his own smile.

His mum, through the laptop screen, is doing a bad job of hiding her amusement. “You first, Leo!” she says. “Open your present!”

Because he knows it infuriates both his mum and his best friend, he takes forever over opening his gift, holding it up to the light, shaking it very gently, pretending to sniff it, until eventually he slides a single finger under the sellotape. As if it’s ever going to be anything other than a cardigan. His mum has outdone herself this year, though: she’s knitted him a cardigan, yes, but there’s a hat and gloves and thick socks, all in the same dark blue wool. He slips the cardigan on over his pyjamas, even though it isn’t really cold enough, and thanks her very sincerely. Mum misses him as much as he misses her, he thinks, and feels a little stab of guilt.

“Jemma next,” she says, gesturing vigorously with her sherry glass.

Jemma opens her present with great enthusiasm, and holds it up, thrilled. It’s a jumper and a scarf made in the same blue as his, and she hugs them to her chest. She’s not embarrassed about the fact that his mum has essentially made them coordinating outfits, so he won’t be either. “Thank you so much, Donna,” she says. “They’re just lovely.”

“Well, I don’t know where they’re sending the two of you, do I? Can’t have you freezing to death in the field. Put it on, love. I want to see if it fits.”

It fits perfectly, which is not a surprise, since Fitz had surreptitiously kidnapped and measured her favourite jumper and sent the numbers to his mum a month ago. Before she can share this information with Jemma, he says hastily “Don’t you forget to open _your_ present, Mum”.

She does so, and is completely delighted when she pulls out five tiny animatronic kittens, each covered in synthetic fur and about the size of a golf ball. Once she sets them going, they crawl along her desk and up her arm, purring loudly. One curls up in the palm of her hand and immediately goes to sleep. 

“Just, um – wanted to send you a hug,” he explains a bit sheepishly, though from the look on her face she understands anyway.

The three of them spend some time watching them and suggesting names, and his mum promises to update them both when she’s decided on what to call them. “They’re lovely, Leo,” she adds. “How you found time to make them - ”

“Actually,” he says, because it is suddenly and inexplicably important to give credit where credit is due, “Jemma helped me make them. She found the best way to make fur that you wouldn’t be allergic to. And helped me to get them to walk realistically. So they’re sort of from both of us.”

“You helped make these?” his mum asks, and Jemma blushes and nods. “Thank you. Both of you. They’re wonderful.”

They talk for a few more minutes, his mum telling them that they were actually having a white Christmas in Glasgow for once, and Jemma chattering about the decorations she’d insisted on hanging everywhere, even in the lab, where they are – point of fact – nothing short of a hazard. He misses his mum the minute she rings off, and Jemma seems to sense it, because she shifts right into his personal space and puts her hand on his knee. Which is fine.

“I’m sorry you can’t get home to her this year,” she says, softly.

He shrugs. “Well, that’s life in the field, isn’t it,” he replies, keeping his tone matter-of-fact. “You aren’t at home either, you know.”

“Yes, but - ” Jemma pauses, apparently a bit shy all of a sudden, but then explains. “I’m not really bothered about it. First Christmas without my parents, yes, but the first one with my best friend.” She gives him one of those big, bright smiles that are either new since the virus or that have never really had this kind of impact on him before. At her implication that there are going to be more Christmasses together in the coming years, something eases in his chest, and he is a little less homesick than before.

He doesn’t know what to do, so he puts a hand over the one that is still, for some reason, on his knee. _Despite missing Mum I’m actually having my favourite Christmas in a long time_ , he doesn’t say. “Pass the orange juice, Simmons, before you kick it all over my sheets.”

Between them – mostly Fitz – they polish off the rest of the breakfast in short order, and then Jemma is sorting through the pile of presents on his bed and pressing one into his hands. “This is for you,” she says, happily.

Fitz doesn’t bother with the whole performance he put on for his mum, this time. It doesn’t seem to be a tie, a book, or anything else that Jemma normally buys him. There’s an envelope, too big for a Christmas card, and something small and soft wrapped in crinkly gold paper. As he opens the envelope, a letter falls out, and he’s surprised to see a stylised monkey on the top – but he isn’t confused for long. _Dear Dr Leopold Fitz_ , the letter begins. _A donation has been made in your name to Panama City Monkey Sanctuary._

“I know it’s not the same,” Jemma explains in a rush, before he can carry on reading, “but now you do – sort of – have a monkey.” Fitz is speechless, pulling out the photos of his monkey – his monkey! – unwrapping the soft plushie that they’d sent, and scanning the letter that explains what the sanctuary will do with the donation. He looks up at Jemma, who’s still talking. “Her name’s Felicia, and she’s a-”

“Central American squirrel monkey,” he finishes. “She’s adorable! Did you know that even the largest Central American squirrel monkeys-”

“Only grow to 291 millimetres? I didn’t! I found out when I was researching. They face significant predation by cats and birds.” She taps the letter in front of her. “This project supports conservation efforts in the local area. That’s part of why I chose her. Also, she’s quite cute.”

He really doesn’t think he’s ever had such a good Christmas present. “The zoologist who gave them their binomial name did so in honour of his best friend. _Saimiri oerstedii_.” He pauses, and looks at Jemma. She’s beaming at him, enjoying his reaction, and his heart does something irresponsible in his chest. “If I discovered a species of monkey, I would name them after you,” he promises rashly. If possible, her smile grows even more luminous, and he looks away because he can’t bear it. He hops out of bed and pins the photo of Felicia to the corkboard above his desk, returning to Jemma once he feels normal again. “ _Thank you_.” With a little half-grin, he adds, “I’m not going to stop asking for one as a lab assistant, you know.”

She rolls her eyes, still smiling, but it’s a more familiar and less unsettling expression now. “I know, Fitz.” 

“Um – your turn.” He knows his tone is abrupt, but she’s given him such a wonderful present and now he’s worried he’s going to let her down. Grabbing the box off the bed, he half gives it, half throws it at her.

Jemma opens it curiously, but her whole face changes as she holds up the gift to the light. It’s a replica of a necklace she’d gazed at longingly in a Seville shop window, enjoying some R&R after their encounter with the Beserker staff. When he’d made surreptitious enquiries, it had been far out of budget – but jewellery isn’t really that complicated compared to perfectly calibrated antiserum delivery systems. In fact, he’d enjoyed making something for Jemma that wouldn’t kill her if he got it wrong. Fitz studiously ignores the part of his brain that thinks that a rose pendant necklace is not something you make for a friend, even a best friend, for whom you have almost always bought books or merch in the past. Nonetheless, there is a reason that he didn’t want her opening her present from him while his mum could see. He smiles tremulously at her, unsure if her open-mouthed shock is positive or negative. Thankfully, she doesn’t leave him wondering for long. 

“Fitz, you _remembered_!” Jemma cries, throwing her arms around him and nearly knocking him over. 

“All right,” he grumbles, pushing her away, because he does not entirely know what will happen if they end up horizontal and hugging in his bed. “I’m literally a rocket scientist, Simmons, do you have to sound so surprised that I’ve got good retention and recall?”

“You know what I mean.” She puts the necklace on immediately. It doesn’t really go with her new jumper or her festive pyjamas. Honestly, she looks a bit ridiculous, but she also looks unbelievably happy, so he doesn’t mention it. “I didn’t even know you’d seen me looking at it.”

“I mean – you’re not a very good actress, Simmons. I’ve seen fireworks displays and carnival parades more subtle than you.” She shoves him lightly in the shoulder, and he bumps her elbow with his. “It isn’t a perfect replica or anything, but I thought it might be close enough.”

“Oh, it’s nicer than the one in the shop,” she murmurs, holding the pendant between her thumb and forefinger, and he blushes. “Isn’t it lovely, sometimes, to make things that are just fun?” It’s so like what he was thinking a few moments ago – and so unlike, as well – that he laughs. 

“Are you telling me, Agent Simmons, that there are downsides to being in the field?”

“Never!” she cries, dramatically, but she’s laughing as well. “After all, if we hadn’t been on a mission, you never would have seen this necklace in the first place.”

They exchange their other gifts – by some sort of mutual unspoken agreement, they’ve each provided a big present and a small one. Jemma unwraps a Ravenclaw stationary set, which she’s very pleased with (even if he thinks that _jumping from a plane to save everyone_ is much more of a Gryffindor move), and she gives him a print with _Brainy is the new sexy_ superimposed over some Sherlock fanart. Which makes him blush again – apparently that’s just something he does for no reason now – but he likes it a lot anyway. He glances at Jemma out of the corner of his eye, his brain traitorously observing that the two things aren’t mutually exclusive, before he pushes that thought firmly out of his mind. It’s just weird having her here in his bed, is all.

Once they’ve finished their tea, there’s nothing for it but to get up and join the celebrations with the rest of the team. Jemma excuses herself with a sigh to go and get showered and changed. As she leaves his bunk, she runs into Skye, and although Fitz can’t hear the words, he can hear the _tone_ of their conversation. Skye is never, ever going to let him live this down. Looking at the discarded wrapping paper and empty mugs littered on his bed, though, he somehow can’t bring himself to care.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I subscribe to the popular fanon that Fitz made the necklace. I don't care if the wiki says it was her grandmother's. Why did she only start wearing it in series 2 when she needed a connection with Fitz so much, hmm? HMM?
> 
> Panama City Monkey Sanctuary is a conglomoration of monkey sanctuaries, rehabilitation projects, and reforestation projects I researched while writing this fic. The Central American squirrel monkey facts are true. I don't know for sure that the two scientists were actually best friends, but one Danish biologist did name it after another contemporary Danish biologist, so I have to assume that they were.


End file.
